


Something to get used to

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [76]
Category: Glee
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 13:40:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13412466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Cody, the latest addition to Blaine's band of warriors and thieves, is enjoying his new house and his new weird family. He thinks he's getting used to his new life, but he hasn't seen it all; Leo and Adam always live in perfect harmony, except when they don't anymore and hell breaks loose.





	Something to get used to

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is an AU from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.  
>  In this particular instance of the universe, Blaine is a man who used to live in Adelar, a small village that got ravaged and burned to ashes by plunderers years ago. He used to teach survival and fighting techniques to the kids there, but when the plunderers came he only managed to save a handful of them, and they escaped with only their lives.  
> Blaine raised the children (Leo, Adam and Annie) as if they were his own. Except they weren't, and at some point all of them started to develop feelings for him, with the consequence that now the four of them are involved in this weird foursome with its own set of rules. At some point along the road they found Cody, and he's now part of the group too.
> 
> Written for: Lande di Fandom's COW-T 8  
> Prompt: competition

In the past few weeks Cody had to get used to a significant number of new things.

First of all, he had to accept the fact that the man he loved had been abusing him since he could remember; that he had bought him from the nuns like a farm animal and sold him to several clients every day to make himself rich by taking advantage of Cody's healing powers.

William was an horrible man, but he was the only one Cody had ever known and the only one who had ever taken care of him, no matter how selfishly, so when he lost him by Blaine's hands, Cody had to learn how to be alone in the world – even though that was admittedly a very short period of time since Blaine and his band of misfits snatched him away from his hometown some ten minutes after killing William. Still, it was ten minutes of getting used to something new.

Then, he had to get used to travel for miles on horseback when his only journey – from the nunnery to William's house – had last a couple of hours and he was comfortably seated inside a carriage. After four days on a horse, his ass was sore and he had two horrible rashes on his inner thighs. And even sleeping in a tent, no matter how big, wasn't as romantic and adventurous as his books had made it sound. It was cold, a bit stinky and the woods were full of animals that made the most horrible noises. Cody wasn't able to sleep at all and he had prayed and hoped they reached their destination at last, whatever that was.

But not all the new things in his life so far have been uncomfortable.

The house – that they finally did reach after another two weeks of painful horseback riding – is the biggest and nicest he has ever seen. It's isolated and in the middle of the woods, but it's built in stone, like city houses are. Inside there are more rooms he was allowed to enter in the nunnery and he is not banished from any of them, not even from the bedrooms. The kitchen is so big it could fit all of them twice and, while the other kids prefer to sleep together in one big bedroom, each of them has his own private practice room. Adam's got a fully equipped gym in the basement; Annie's reign is in the attic, where she keeps all her magic books and casting her spells is relatively safe; and Leo's shooting range takes up half the yard behind the house.

Blaine told Cody he will have his own private room soon enough – a nice thought that almost made Cody cry – but he's already the happiest he's ever been with a whole house to roam about instead of only two rooms, one of which contained only the bed he worked on. The library alone, with his four walls of books, can keep him entertained enough that he won't need a private room for the next ten years.

Also his new home was easy to get used to, and so was this new family. It was a little weird in the beginning to have so many people around all the time; or to know that, when they were speaking to him, they were really interested in what he had to say. But Cody got very comfortable very quickly with them, because they're all nice and affectionate people, who make everything they can to make him feel part of the family. There's no activity they exclude him from or inside joke they don't explain to him.

He has learned more about them in the little time he has spent here than about anybody else in the past seventeen years. Most days now he wakes up feeling like he's been knowing these people all his life and it's an happy thought. That is why he feels very confused now, because what's happening in front of his eyes makes no sense and he's not sure he can – or he's supposed to – get used to it.

They're all together in the common room, where Blaine and Adam have temporarily relocated the kitchen table so Leo could roll a map on it. The map was pristine when he got it downstairs, but it's now covered in lines and symbols Cody can decipher only because he was present at the discussion that preceded them. As far as he understands, Blaine and the others are planning their next heist – the first after Blaine got wounded, almost died and was saved by Cody – but there are some logistic problems on who should be where with whom at what time, which from Cody's very novice point of view doesn't sound promising.

They are supposed to steal a very ancient artifact from the house of a merchant who has been holding onto it for the past three years and half. The man bought it from some wizard in the southern lands and, despite the fact that it's worth thousands of golden coins, he doesn't want to part from it, which apparently convinced an alchemist that the artifact is the real deal, and now said alchemist is paying Blaine and the guys a lot of money to steal it.

The job should be quite easy – enter the house, find the artifact, exit the house – but there are some details that make it extremely problematic. First of all, they don't know what the artifact is, neither does the alchemist. As far as they know, it could be anything and they certainly can't take everything away from the merchant's house. Secondly, the house is more of a fortress than a house. The merchant was cautious even before acquiring the artifact, but he's now straight out paranoid and he's got an army of mercenaries defending him. Third, they have a very short window of time to prepare everything, because rumors has it that the merchant wants to move the artifact to an unknown and much safer location, which would make it unavailable for who knows how long.

The preparations are not going well and this must be the tenth time Adam and Leo are discussing the relatively simple act of dividing into groups. “And how do you expect me to kill all the guards alone?” Adam is asking, his arms crossed on his chest, after Leo explained to him that he'll have to cover both him and Blaine as they enter the merchant's house. He sounds and looks incredibly skeptical.

“I don't know, with your sword, maybe?” Leo answers. “Isn't that why you have it and swing it around all the time?”

He's currently using a few chess pieces as placeholders for all of them on the map. Blaine's the king. Annie's the queen. Leo's the bishop and Adam is quite obviously the knight. He's also using a pawn for Cody, but that doesn't move much because he's supposed to stay with the horses that will take them all back home once the heist will be done. And even so, they're bringing him with them only because they didn't want to leave him defenseless at home. Leo places the Adam-knight at the door of the merchant's house, while pushing the king and the bishop along the west side of it. Queen Annie is overlooking the whole scene from the nearby hill.

Adam slams his hand on the table, the bishop and the king wobble for a few seconds and then fall unceremoniously. “No, I'm not even discussing this,” he says, firmly. “That's suicidal. You're crazy. That's a no. If you want, you can take Annie with you, but I'm not gonna die because you're too scared to go in alone.” 

The expression on Leo's face is a mix of outrage and annoyance, which Cody must admit is hard to achieve. “First of all, I'm not afraid of going in alone. In fact, I can totally go in alone all you want, that's not even remotely the point. Secondly, you need Annie outside, so she can magic half the guards asleep for you.”

“She could cast the spell while she enters the house with you.”

“No, she couldn't,” Leo says, triumphantly, as if that was exactly where he wanted him. “She needs elevation to achieve range. And she needs range to get the numbers. Do you even listen to her when she speaks? If she goes in with me, she'll have to spell them one by one and she'll wear herself out before she got ten of them to sleep.”

“And what would be the point of not going in alone if you could, in fact, _totally go in alone all you want_?” Adam asks, snorting. “Please, enlighten me.”

“I wouldn't know which on is the artifact even if it hit me in the face,” Leo says, crossing his arms on his chest. “I need someone who can decide what thingamabob to get back.”

“And who better than Annie, then?” Adam insists. “The artifact is magical. She's magical. She will know.”

Cody turns to look at Annie, who's the only one not discussing the plan around the table. She's sitting on a armchair in a corner and she's lazily flipping through the pages of a magic book. Not even when she hears her name she looks up. She must be used to this because she's not interested in the slightest. Blaine, on the other hand, is green in the face and looks on the verge of throwing up.

“She would be perfect if we didn't need her somewhere else,” Leo goes on. “Elevation. Range. Numbers. There's no way around that. She stays on the hill. I take Blaine. You go alone.”

“You would really let me die, just to have it your way, wouldn't you?”

Leo rolls his eyes to the ceiling so quickly that it's a miracle they don't fall to the floor. “You're so dramatic! You're not going to die. Haven't you trained all your life for that?”

Blaine sighs and silently pours himself a glass of water as Adam walks around the table and ignores him to get to Leo. “Exactly! I've trained all my life to fight, so you can trust me when I say that I can't take an army alone. I need Blaine.”

“Well, I need him too,” Leo protests, crossing his arms on his chest. “Besides, if I don't know what to take from the house, you'll be killing people for nothing.”

“Do you know what I think, Leo?” Adam asks, this time frowning seriously. “I think you don't need Blaine to find the artifact, you just want him with you. And now you're making up excuses to pretend this is a tactical choice instead of one of your childish whim.”

The change on Leo's face is instantaneous. Cody has never seen his face become so angry so quickly. “How come every time you decide Blaine has to come with you is a tactical decision, and when I ask for him is not?”

“That's because you never take tactical decisions!” Adam explains. “Your every decision is dictated by what you want, no matter how unreasonable it is! And that's because you're a spoiled brat!”

“Boys, come on.” Blaine's quite feeble attempt falls on deaf ears. Leo and Adam don't even turn to look at him as he pinches his nose and seems to prepare for the worst. “We don't have time for this.”

“I'm the spoiled brat?” Leo retorts. “Blaine's always with you every single time we've got a job to do!”

“Because we're both swordsmen, you dense dummy!” Adam spits out in frustration. “If we had another ranger in the party, you'd be working with him, given that rangers worked together, which they don't because being stealth is literally in their job description and being stealthy in groups has never taken any rangers very far! You're supposed to work alone!”

“Boys, I suggest we discuss the matter at hand rather than whatever this is that you're talking about right now. “Blaine tries to put himself between them, but the only result is that they both take a step forward towards each other to cut him out.

“I'm not saying I should _always_ work with him,” Leo says. “But I _need_ to work with him this time.”

“No, you don't,” Adam insists, shaking his head. “You just want to.”

“Even if, why shouldn't I want to work with him every now and then?” Leo snaps, flicking the adam-knight and sending him fly down the table in retaliation. Cody picks it up but holds it in his hands, not knowing if putting it back on the table will set Leo off. “It's not fair that he's working with you all the time anyway!”

“And thank the gods he does! At least he's got some peace!” Adam remarks. “If it was for you, he would spend the entirety of his life with his cock up your ass, moving you around like a hand puppet!”

“If it was for you,” Leo retorts, “Blaine would never get off because your cock works funny!”

“And that's my cue to leave,” Blaine mutters, storming out of the room as quick as he can. Cody would like to follow him, but the boys move around the table, blocking the way to the door and suddenly it's too late to do anything. He blushes so hard that his whole face feels on fire. 

Adam growls. “That's low, even for you, Leo.”

“Not as low as you get when you want something from him.”

Adam's cheeks get a little redder, but not enough to stop him from answering. “At least I don't lie down like a dead body the entire time,” he hisses. “Maybe that's exactly why he likes me more, 'cause I don't let him do all the work!”

The air in the room feels suddenly still and cold. Cody is almost sure he's going to choke or something. There's so much tension between the two boys that it's prickling his skin. He turns to look at Annie, but she's still reading her book as if nothing happened.

“You didn't dare,” Leo says, in a low, threatening voice.

“Oh, I totally did,” Adam nods.

“Take it back.”

“It's not my fault if you're spoiled even in bed,” Adam insists. “As it's not my fault that he had to teach _me_ to use a sword since you couldn't hold one properly for your life.”

Cody expects Leo to just explode at this point, instead he just snorts. “Please, Adam. I could take you down with my spare weapons any time!”

“Oh really?”

“Really.”

“Then prove it!”

Suddenly, they move together towards the door as if they both knew the other was going to do just that. In fact, Cody follows them and see them cross the hall and then part ways in synchronicity at the end of it, all the while bickering without missing a beat. “Go get your ridiculous bow!” Adam screams, climbing down the stairs towards his training room.

“It's a crossbow!” Leo spits out, taking the back door.

“Same difference!” Adam screams louder from downstairs.

“Like your tiny stick and Blaine's bad ass two handed sword!” Leo almost screeches, his voice more distant now that he's outside.

“A stick you can't even lift!”

“Fuck off!”

Cody thought he knew the dynamics of the house – although they are a little blurry sometimes – but what just happened makes no sense to him and also makes him a little sad. There seemed to be such harmony between everybody that he can't deal with the idea of seeing these people screaming at each other like that for something so silly. He saw Blaine with Leo and Adam: he's the most caring and affectionate man with both of them, but in different ways because they are different. Blaine loves them both so very much and they have no reason to worry about their place in his heart.

He would like to reassure them and force them to make peace, but he doesn't move and doesn't know if he should speak either; he's the last person that should go to them and tell them how much their man love them since he's barely part of the family.

“Don't worry, you'll get used to it.” Cody turns around quickly, startled. Annie finally got up from the armchair and she's now standing right behind him. “They do that all the time. Actually, they were low key just bickering this time.”

“Bickering?” Cody really struggles to believe that. “They were very mean to each other.”

“But nobody set fire to the house. Hurrah!” Annie says, without enthusiasm. Then, she goes back into the living room and resumes her place on the armchair.

Cody follows her this time and then sits down in the armchair next to hers. “You don't sound happy.”

Annie sighs and closes her book again, putting it down on the little coffee table. “I'm sorry, it's just that after sixteen years of this, they're getting boring.”

“Sixteen years?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” She pulls her long legs up and hugs them. “They've been competing with each other for Blaine since I can remember. In the beginning it was just for his attention. They wanted him to choose who was the best or the strongest, or even the tallest, as if he could _choose_ that, they were so stupid! Then, of course, things got complicated. They—well, actually, we started to date him, so suddenly it wasn't just a squabble between kids anymore, it was a constant fight between alpha males. Except that they are two idiots, so it's mostly Adam flexing his muscles and being annoyingly perfect, and Leo pouting and being emotionally unstable.”

Cody chuckles. “And did they ever set fire to the house?”

“Twice only last year,” Annie nods. “They wanted to establish _once and for all_ who was the most deserving of Blaine's attention, or something similarly idiotic. And they decided that that could be done only by dealing with fire.”

“What...?”

“Don't ask. There is no logic,” Annie shakes her head. “So, Leo started shooting fire arrows left and right, claiming he could control the flames by simply shooting them in the right places. Adam, on the other hand, covered his sword in resin and set fire to it. At some point, one of Leo's arrows got stuck in the door, and instead of throwing water on it, Adam tried to cut the arrow with his flaming sword. Eventually, the whole door caught fire, and half the living room with it.”

Cody looks at her with big blue eyes. “I can't believe it.”

“None of us could. Blaine was so angry at them that he threatened to throw them out of the house,” she goes on. “The he calmed down, but they had to sleep in the barn for a month. And these are only the times they argue about who's the best. It's even worse when they fight because both of them want to spend the night with Blaine. In those cases you have to add Leo's epic tantrums and Adam's moody rage to the mix.”

“And is this going to happen often?”

“Pretty much every other day on different levels,” Annie answers, sounding unfazed by the thought. As one would expect her to be after sixteen years of madness. She stands up and pats him on the shoulder. “Come on, it's showtime. The sooner we witness this, the sooner we can go on with our lives.”

Cody hears Leo and Adam clamoring from outside and he's not sure he's ready for that.

*

On the side of the house and all the way to the woods there is a huge training ground that has changed a few times during the years to accommodate the ever growing abilities of the three kids – now teens – Blaine has trained like soldiers (and also thieves, mercenaries and many other things) with such dedication. Right now it looks like a battlefield with trenches and walls and all this kind of stuff. It's supposed to be the perfect place to hold a competition, but the two boys ignore it completely, heading straight to the woods.

Blaine, at the edge of the training course looks very tired. It's so clear that he was hoping for this to be quick and it won't be, that Cody feels deeply sorry for him. “Boys, where are you going?” 

“I'm not giving him the higher ground,” Leo explains, without turning around. “There are very few places for me to shoot from here.”

“And I don't want him to say I had it easier when I beat him,” Adam agrees. “We're going in the woods, so he can climb the trees, like the monkey he is, all he wants. I'm still gonna serve him his own ass back on a plate.”

Cody thought it was a simple fight between friends – no matter how harsh – but Leo and Adam are in full gear and fully armed as he has never seen them. Adam wears a light armor that protects his chest, legs and shoulder but still let him move swiftly. He's holding his double-edge sword in his hand, the one with Adam's initials carved on it and the two rampant lions on the handle, and he's got two other swords crossed on his back.

Leo wears no armor, obviously, but one black glove that covers his hand and halfway up to his forearm. Cody knows that's the hand Leo pulls the bowstring with. He doesn't have his longbow with him, tho. In his hands there's a crossbow, which Cody knows is way faster and more lethal, and it's so big that he's even a little scared of it. Leo wears the quiver on his back and two belts around his hips. From one, hangs a little short sword, from the other the bag with the chalk that he uses when his hands are too sweaty.

Both of them have a handkerchief around their upper arm, red for Adam and blue for Leo. It's basically a game of capture the flag, but they seem ready for war.

They enter the woods and take two different directions. Cody, Blaine and Annie follow them inside, but stop just a few feet in, waiting for them to begin. They didn't request a referee, but they will have an audience at least. The fight begins with Leo's first arrow hissing apparently from nowhere and sticking in a tree, a few inches away from Adam's head.

Adam turns around as two other arrows fly towards him. He avoids both of them rolling on the ground, and when the next hailstorm of arrows arrives, he's ready to meet it with the blade of his sword. Cody watches him fascinated as he seems to dance around, drawing figures in the air and cutting the arrows as they come.

“Keep shooting,” Adam screams, turning around. “I'm gonna know where you are.”

But the next arrow comes from a completely different way, showing that Leo is moving swiftly from tree to tree, but they can see a single leaf move. Adam curses as the arrow whistles next to his head again. “Leo!”  
A laugh in the foliage gives Leo away. Adam starts running in that direction and Cody wonders what he's supposed to do if Leo doesn't come down. Adam answers his unspoken question by climbing the closest rock, jumping from it and cutting a branch with one single sweep of his word while still in the air.

Right after that, Adam, the branch and Leo fall to the ground, precisely in that order. Adam performs a perfect landing. The branch does his best. Leo lands unceremoniously on his ass with a grunt, but he's quick to roll away and avoid Adam's blade, that ends up stuck in the ground. “Not so cocky anymore, now that you're within reach, uh?”

Leo seems unfazed by having lost the high ground and also his crossbow, which fell a few feet away from him. He doesn't try to retrieve it, tho. He grabs his own sword instead. “I was gonna come down anyway,” Leo shrugs. “You're not worth all those broken arrows.”

“You're so gonna lose,” Adam says, grinning.

“Keep dreaming.”

Their blades clash with such a noise that Cody jumps, scared, and with him a storm of birds that were nesting in the trees nearby. For a few moments their squawking covers any other sound and Cody can't do anything but look at them flying away. When he turns back to look at the boys, they're locked in battle. It's instantly clear that Leo is no match for Adam's sword, but he's more agile than his best friend, so what cleave he can't parry with his sword, he ducks, and Adam never hits the mark.

Probably out of frustration, Adam's movements become sharper and his cleaves heavier. It becomes harder for Leo to hold him back whenever he attacks. More than a few times Adam's blade slides on his own and the only way Leo has to disengage is to quickly roll on the side and be ready to parry again because Adam doesn't cut him any slack. Once or twice, Leo's shirt risks to lose some fabric, but he always manages to get away. 

The clanging is horrifying tho, and Cody can't see them joking anymore. “Are you not afraid they're going to kill each other?” Cody asks Blaine, who has been intently watching his boys. It's clear in the way his eyes narrow at times that he's inwardly noticing when they do something wrong.

“They can't,” he answers calmly, without looking away from the fight. “I've trained them not to.”

Cody frowns, puzzled, and Annie comes to the rescue. “Our first rule of combat is to protect each other,” she explains, smiling warmly at him. “No matter what happens, we come first.”

“Yes, but they seem so angry.”

“They are, because they are idiots,” Annie agrees. “But look closely. Adam always hit with the flat of the sword, also letting him move away whenever he can't disengage. And Leo has been shooting each one of his arrows a quarter of an inch too much to the left.”

Cody instantly turns to them and tries to see what Annie is telling him, but he knows nothing about swords and Adam seems dangerously lethal to him. “Trust me, Cody,” Annie goes on, wrapping him in a hug. “Leo can shoot an apricot from two hundred feet away, and once Adam got you, it's over. This is just an act.”

“One that it's been going on too long,” Blaine says. He waits for them to be perfectly even – Adam pushing his sword down to break Leo's parry and Leo's holding him at bay – and then he just says, “Enough!”

The boys freeze, instantly. Then, they take two steps back, lowering their swords. They're both exhausted and out of breath. Blaine looks at them seriously but doesn't move. “So? Who's the best?” Leo asks right away. Adam turns to their mentor, waiting for an answer.  
“You're both awful,” Blaine comments without mercy. “You will need to be way better than that if you want to do this job with me. Now, hit the shower, both of you.”

Leo tries to protest, but Adam just covers his mouth with his hand and pushes him forward before Blaine can punish them in some way. They do head towards the house muttering about the unfairness of life, tho. “Were they really so bad?” Cody asks once they can't see them anymore.

“Nah, in all modesty, they're perfect,” Blaine says.

“But if he chose Leo, Adam would have been impossible to communicate with for weeks,” Annie explains. “And if he chose Adam, Leo would have fallen into a pit of despair and lost the ability to hit anything. And we need this job done in three days.”

“I will never thank the gods enough for you, princess,” Blaine moans, leaving a kiss on her head.

When they get back to the house, Leo and Adam are arguing again about who should have a shower first, and judging by the noise coming from upstairs, they're probably destroying the bathroom. Blaine and Annie sigh, and Cody sighs too, because that's definitely another thing he got used to.


End file.
